Google, Microsoft Join Obama to Combat Knockoff Drugs

By William McQuillen -
Dec 14, 2010

Google Inc. and Microsoft Corp. are
helping to establish a nonprofit organization targeting illegal
Internet pharmacies in support of Obama administration efforts,
according to the White House Office of Management and Budget.

The group is comprised of companies that serve as Internet
choke points and was in response to a call from the
administration for private efforts to police illegal pharmacies,
said Victoria Espinel, the White House intellectual property
enforcement coordinator.

Counterfeit drug sales account for about $75 billion in
global sales, according to the National Association of Boards of
Pharmacy. An estimated 1 percent to 2 percent of drugs in North
America are counterfeit, according to the group’s website.

“It’s important that we act aggressively now before it
snowballs into a bigger problem,” Espinel said in an interview.
The U.S. aims to “put a challenge to the private sector, rather
than have us regulate or mandate.”

“As the administration has made clear, no one company can
solve this problem, so this new cross-industry group is a
welcome step forward that we are pleased to support,” Hilary Ware, managing counsel for litigation and regulatory affairs at
Mountain View, California-based Google, said in a statement.

Drugmaker Losses

In addition to the health risks, legitimate drugmakers are
losing business and jobs from consumers buying counterfeit
pharmaceuticals, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano
said at a White House meeting on intellectual property theft.

Law-enforcement officials seized chemicals from makeshift
factories in Pakistan, India and Colombia that were to be used
for counterfeit drugs. Pharmaceuticals advertised as having come
from Canada may actually be produced in China and were
repackaged, John Clark, Pfizer Inc.’s vice president for global
security, said during the meeting.

As part of its effort, the U.S. contacted credit-card
payment networks, advertisers and companies that control
assignment of Internet addresses, or domain names, that can be
used by illegal pharmacies.

“The scope of counterfeiting today is such that much of
what you and I take for granted as secure and healthy may not
be,” John Morton, the director of U.S. Immigration and Customs
Enforcement, part of the Homeland Security Department, said in
an interview.